The Collapsing Empire (Scalzi)
Jul. 19th, 2021 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn3/5. Read for "Best Series" Hugos.
...I got to this at exactly the right time; I would probably have bounced off its breezy shallowness a couple years ago -- no wait, ha, I did bounce off its breezy shallowness when I was supposed to read it for 2018 Hugo-reading -- and six months ago I wasn't reading much at all -- but I've started reading things again now, and I was in the mood for popcorn. Which this is. It hasn't got much in the way of substance, but it's fun light space opera. Well, the book deals with... a collapsing empire, and various people die, etc. so I guess in that way it's kind of dark? But the plot and characters are entertaining while also being shallow, so one doesn't have to care very hard about any of it.
The most hilarious part of it was what I think was supposed to be a major plot/thematic twist, but which really wasn't. Midway through, the emperox dramatically learns that -- horrors!! the foundation of the Empire was motivated not by idealistic goals and prophecies for humanity but by trade guilds wanting to secure their hegemonies and maximize their profits!! WHO COULD EVER HAVE GUESSED.
Like, okay, I know basically zero history (except, now, for gossipy sensationalism in 18th C Prussia, in what continues to be Total Awesomeness) but even before the last couple of years I knew that... empires don't get founded out of idealism. No matter what the propaganda says.
First of a trilogy (so the story is only a third done at the end of this book), and against my expectations I actually ended up placing a hold on the next book right away. I wouldn't rec it unless you were in the mood for something pretty shallow where you don't have to care about anything you're reading about, but if you are, this is fun!
...I got to this at exactly the right time; I would probably have bounced off its breezy shallowness a couple years ago -- no wait, ha, I did bounce off its breezy shallowness when I was supposed to read it for 2018 Hugo-reading -- and six months ago I wasn't reading much at all -- but I've started reading things again now, and I was in the mood for popcorn. Which this is. It hasn't got much in the way of substance, but it's fun light space opera. Well, the book deals with... a collapsing empire, and various people die, etc. so I guess in that way it's kind of dark? But the plot and characters are entertaining while also being shallow, so one doesn't have to care very hard about any of it.
The most hilarious part of it was what I think was supposed to be a major plot/thematic twist, but which really wasn't. Midway through, the emperox dramatically learns that -- horrors!! the foundation of the Empire was motivated not by idealistic goals and prophecies for humanity but by trade guilds wanting to secure their hegemonies and maximize their profits!! WHO COULD EVER HAVE GUESSED.
Like, okay, I know basically zero history (except, now, for gossipy sensationalism in 18th C Prussia, in what continues to be Total Awesomeness) but even before the last couple of years I knew that... empires don't get founded out of idealism. No matter what the propaganda says.
First of a trilogy (so the story is only a third done at the end of this book), and against my expectations I actually ended up placing a hold on the next book right away. I wouldn't rec it unless you were in the mood for something pretty shallow where you don't have to care about anything you're reading about, but if you are, this is fun!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-22 01:20 pm (UTC)That's a literal description of the entire plot structure of Foundation, and I love Foundation, so that's not the problem to me. I'm fine with that structure, if it has good storytelling motivation. The problem is that in Foundation those resolutions are genuinely unexpected, complicated puzzles involving a deeply constructed worldbuilding scenario, whereas in the Interdependency the twists are just unmotivated junk to keep the plot sort of moving.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-24 05:25 am (UTC)...but I went back and looked and the resolution of the cliffhanger infodumping is, yeah, like you say, driving interesting puzzles and also folded into a scene that furthers the plot and the worldbuilding. Whereas I felt like Scalzi's scenes were so static! Cardenia would be like "dum de dum let me do this thing that has no relation at all to the cliffhanger, and oh by the way now we will have a flashback to the resolution of the last chapter," and it just didn't make any sense why he would do it that way!